Power in the case of friction or default. In that event Washington would have the choice between washing its hands of the Monroe Doctrine and embarking on a war with Germany.

There was only one sure way in which that danger could be averted. The European Power that could look with contempt on Guatemala or Costa Rica or Nicaragua would find it a perilous adventure to come into collision with a PanAmerican alliance backed by the naval and financial resources of the United of the United States and Argentina and Brazil-so perilous, indeed, that the mere existence of the alliance would be an almost certain guarantee against aggression. That, at least, was President Wilson's belief, and its influence can be traced through the whole of his foreign policy. He was fully conscious that there could be no question of tutelage by the United States. The mere suspicion of such tutelage was the greatest obstacle to the project he had set before him. A strong tendency towards jealousy and distrust marked the attitude of every Latin-American State towards the Union, fostered by such specific influences as the memory of the seizures of territory from Mexico in 1846 and the more recent acquisition of the Panama zone during Mr. Roosevelt's Presidency. There was a general belief that the fixed aim of the United States was the extension of her political influence southward, and if that suspicion had been encouraged by armed intervention in Mexico all hope of carrying through a Pan-American agreement would have been finally dissipated.

As it was Mr. Wilson was able, not merely to avoid creating suspicion, but actually to use the Mexican trouble as an instrument for the furtherance of his larger purpose, by meeting on equal terms in 1914, and again in 1915, delegates from several of the Latin-American States in conferences on a Mexican settlement.

Those guarantees of the good faith of the United States assured a favourable reception for the proposals publicly outlined by the President at the Pan-American Scientific Congress at Washington early in 1916. The conference was ostensibly devoted to scientific deliberations. Actually it was the occasion for the discussion of a pronouncement of the most vital and farreaching importance to every American State. That pronouncement was embodied in the speech delivered by President Wilson on January 6th, when he laid before the Congress proposals for the conclusion of an understanding between all the American Republics on the following basis :

1. Mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity.

2. Settlement of all disputes not touching independence by arbitration or friendly discussion. 3. Maintenance in every State of the republican form of government.

4. No equipment of a revolutionary force in, or exportation of arms from, one State to the detriment of the Government of another.

In view of the frequency of filibustering expeditions across the boundaries of certain Central

and South American States the importance of the last provision needs no emphasis.

Mr. Wilson's proposals were endorsed at the same Congress by Mr. Lansing, the Secretary of State, who dwelt on the value to every American republic of an understanding that would give expression to their common ideals for their common benefit. The proposals were received with general approval, and negotiations for the conclusion of a series of treaties to carry them into effect have since been in progress, though none of the treaties have as yet (February 1917) been ratified.

The full significance of President Wilson's PanAmerican alliance cannot yet be gauged, for it opens up possibilities on which it is too early to pronounce. In one direction extension inevitably suggests itself. The Pan-American proposals as at present outlined embrace the whole of the American continent from Cape Horn to the Great Lakes. Is it impossible that the northern limit should be, not the Great Lakes but the Arctic Ocean? That is manifestly part of a much larger problem. British colonies, even self-governing colonies, do not enter into diplomatic agreements independently of the Mother Country, and the question of Great Britain's alliances will have to be considered as part of, or as sequel to, the war settlement. It need only be remarked that an alliance between the British Empire and a league of Pan-American Republics would provide a new and durable element of stability in international politics. The possibility of such a

development has not been overlooked in America, where it was pointed out by responsible critics immediately on the publication of Mr. Wilson's speech that it was absurd to talk of PanAmericanism and ignore the fact that one of the greatest of the American Powers was not included in it; and that only a combination of the Latin Republics, the United States, and Great Britain could make Pan-Americanism a safe and useful principle of foreign policy.

The Pan-American proposals are essentially an extension of, not a derogation from, the Monroe Doctrine, for they provide effective safeguards for the Doctrine's central principle, the prohibition of European interference in American affairs. Incidentally they are calculated to dispel all Latin suspicion of the United States, for they will, if ratified, effectively prevent the Washington Government from acquiring by conquest annexation a single square foot of territory south of the Rio Grande. What effect they might have on European commercial penetration in Latin America is problematic, but the tendency would no doubt be towards the policy publicly advocated by Mr. Wilson, of inviting the financier from the Eastern hemisphere to come rather as an investor than a concessionaire.

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Mr. Wilson's Pan-American aims have been discussed thus early in this chapter on account of the light they throw on the character of his foreign policy as a whole. He has always looked beyond the immediate interests of the United States, and it is not surprising that a section of

his compatriots should accuse him from time to time of idealistic altruism. The grounds for that charge were provided by a number of decisions. taken by the President in the first two years of his administration. The first of these, notable only as a revelation of Mr. Wilson's point of view, was his advice to American financiers to withdraw from the Six Power Group in China, on the ground that America ought to have no part in arrangements that promised to infringe China's diplomatic and territorial integrity. Far more important was the President's action in regard to the Panama Canal Tolls in 1914. That ques

tion was a legacy from the previous Administration. When Great Britain had agreed to leave the United States a free hand in the construction of the proposed Panama Canal it was stipulated, by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901, that the tolls levied should apply to the shipping of all nations equally and without discrimination. In spite of that an Act had been passed by Mr. Taft's Administration in 1912 exempting all coastwise shipping from tolls. The ground taken by the defenders of this measure-including Mr. Taft, himself a jurist of some distinction-was that as coastwise trade was confined to American vessels decisions taken with regard to it were no concern of any external Power, a position vigorously contested by the British and other European Governments. No agreement had been reached when Mr. Wilson took office, and the expiring Congress had not responded to Sir Edward Grey's proposal to submit the whole matter to arbitration. There